James Bond
It’s hard to discuss the history of British intelligence without mentioning James Bond. As the man behind dozens of the most successful spy missions in the Cold War and the War on Terror, James is perhaps the most famous spy in all history. J0/Original James Bond was born on November 15th 1920, named after James Moriarty, a close friend and associate of his grandfather Campion Bond. James' parents (Andrew Bond of Scotland and Monique Delacroix Bond of the Canton de Vaud, Switzerland) were tragically killed during a climbing accident in the French Alps when he was eleven. He had acquired a first-class command of the French and German languages during his early education, which he received entirely abroad due to his father's work as a Vickers armaments company representative. After the death of his parents, Bond went to live with his aunt, Miss Charmian Bond in the small village of Pett Bottom, Canterbury, where he completed his early education. Later, he briefly attends Eton College at "12 or thereabouts", but was removed after two terms because of girl trouble with a maid and for bullying fellow student John Steed. After leaving Eton, Bond was sent to Fettes College in Scotland, his father's school. On his first visit to Paris at the age of sixteen, Bond lost his virginity After leaving Fettes, Bond studied, briefly attending the University of Geneva, before being taught to ski in Kitzbühel by Hannes Oberhauser. Following his graduation, Bond joined the Ministry of Defence shortly before the outbreak of World War II. Bond applied to M for a position within the "Secret Service", part of the Civil Service, and rose to the rank of principal officer. By 1953, Bond was already a 00 agent having been given the position after killing two enemy agents, a Japanese spy on the thirty-sixth floor of the RCA Building at Rockefeller Center in New York City and a Norwegian double agent who had betrayed two British agents; it is suggested by Bond scholar John Griswold that these were part of Bond's wartime service with Special Operations Executive (SOE), a British World War II covert military organisation. In 1954, according to the Soviet file on him, Bond was made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George. James Bond was 37 in 1955, eight years shy of the retirement age for Agents. As time went on he would get older. However he would become a national treasure and Spies were hired to replace him. J1(John Patrick Mason) The second Bond, a young masculine Scotsman, took the role in 1963. Since then the name of James Bond has been used by at least six different British agents, as different in looks and personality as they were alike in competence and effectiveness. So effective that nearly every other agent in Britain or America has attempted to emulate his style – the American agent Maxwell Smart noted in interviews during his retirement that the Bond brand of suave was a gift that he would have given anything to have had. The use of the Bond codename was used at its peak during the Cold War, but as the 21st century came about and new threats from alien invaders, cybernetic uprising and a resurgent magic, 007 became less and less used. Still, Bond, James Bond, and his legacy would remain irrevocably tied to British intelligence.Category:Characters